{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Eventapalooza Podcast","title":"Launching a Mars Conference the Week NASA Fell Apart","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":931,"description":"Three people, one AI agent, and a maritime defense conference with the Navy League. This is how small teams are now launching profitable events from zero.\nBrian D'Erario is co-founder of Kerri, a holding company for B2B media and events that partners with niche creators and associations to launch conferences from scratch. The conversation covers his path from The Wall Street Journal to Morning Brew to Archaea Media Group, the launch of the Kinetic hardware engineering conference, the upcoming Ironclad Maritime Summit with the Navy League, and how his team's AI agent, Kerry, handles operations, outreach, and logistics behind a three-person events team.\n\nWhat You'll Learn\nRoom composition: Getting the right people in the room matters more than ticket sales or sponsorship, which both follow downstream of content and network.\nZero-to-one launches: Small, focused first events, like Kinetic's 325 attendees and 27 sponsors, outperform trying to go big immediately.\nNo tech debt as an advantage: Starting without a legacy CRM or existing software stack lets a new company build AI-native operations from day one.\nAI agents in events: An AI agent can run outreach, newsletter inventory, and booth planning, leaving content and direct sales as the two functions that stay human.\nAssociation partnerships: Groups with strong networks but no events expertise, like the Navy League, are prime partners for teams that know how to launch and profit from a show.\nSponsor satisfaction is inflated in year one: An 80% satisfaction score from a first-year event should be read cautiously, since sponsors tend to be more forgiving on a debut show.\nPersonalization at scale: AI makes it possible to give every attendee a personalized manifest of sessions, speakers, and relevant sponsors, even in a 10,000-person conference.\nExternal shocks can derail a launch: A Lunar and Mars Summit was hit by a government travel ban and a leadership change days before the event, showing how fragile a first-year...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/LV8XNOcV7CCYB6z6KUcoCMznPn1-EfoPoaAfm_UD1kI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jNGNm/M2IzMDM0NDQwZGY3/ZjZhMjQxNWVkZTEx/NzAwOC5qcGVn.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}